Susie Wolff: ‘Getting a woman on the F1 grid is eight to 10 years away’

S usie Wolff, the managing director of Formula One’s new all-female series, the F1 Academy, believes it could take as long as a decade for the championship’s aims to be realised and return a woman to the F1 grid. Wolff also revealed that an extensive and radical grassroots expansion plan backed by F1 and to be trialled in the UK is seen as essential to improving female participation in motor sport.

The F1 Academy has been welcomed as a positive step toward improving diversity but in terms of propelling a woman on to the grid, Wolff cautioned against any presumption that it would occur in the immediate future.

“I believe it’s eight to 10 years away from happening,” she told the Guardian. “That’s not just because we are lacking the female talent pool and lacking those who progress through the sport but also because of the realisation that getting to F1 is incredibly tough. It’s tough for all of the male drivers.

“There are only 20 spots on the grid and that’s why it is going to take time. I do believe in eight to 10 years, when we have had a continued growth of the talent pool and more females entering the sport, it will be much more realistic.”

F1 has not had a woman start a grand prix since Lella Lombardi raced in Austria in 1976. She and Maria Teresa de Filippis are the only two women to have raced in f1 since the championship began in 1950.

The sport’s owners are attempting to address this directly by creating and backing the F1 Academy. The series will host its opening race this weekend at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, with 15 drivers competing for five experienced teams who already race in F3 and F2. It was the prospect of the Academy making a difference, despite the scale of how long it might take to do so, that